Breakup
by Kent Leatham
“they are… creatures of ignorant suffering”
–Sharon Olds
You feel most sorry for the tits,
and the hidden spongecake of the cock,
the parts that do not understand
this dissolution, the sudden lack
of touch each night, the lips, the hand
now gone, deleted, out-of-stock
like milk or waffles. Flesh gets stained
by fellowship; it cannot fake
the loss as well as heart or brain.
It reaches out despite our talk,
a stubborn child, too-well-trained;
it craves the meat-key’s tongue that fits
the private tumblers of its lock.
The wrist recalls. The eye awaits.
Kent Leatham is a poet, translator, editor, and critic. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Fence, Zoland, Poetry Quarterly, Poets & Artists, InTranslation, Ezra, Softblow, and The Battered Suitcase. Kent serves as a poetry editor for Black Lawrence Press and lives in central California.